I did. You admire that? Perhaps so, now, but you would
not if you had seen it being done. That is the sort of thing I do, and
I will tell you the sort of thing I like. The day I came home from
Holland I did what I liked--as soon as I reached London I went to
Johnny Gillat, my dear old friend, who I love better than any one else
in the world, and we had a supper of steak and onions in a back
bedroom, and we enjoyed it--you see what my tastes are? Afterwards I
heard how father had taken to drink and mother had got into debt--you
see what a nice family we are?"

But here Rawson-Clew stopped her. "I knew something like this before,"
he said; "the details are nothing; I do not see what it has to do with
the matter."

"It ought to have a lot," she answered. "But even if you do know it
and a good deal more and realise it too, which is a different thing,
there is still the other side. I don't know you, I don't even know
your name."

Then he remembered that he must have signed that offer of marriage, as
he signed all letters, and so left himself merely "H. F. Rawson-Clew"
to her.

"You see," she was saying, "it is a mistake for people who don't know
each other very well to marry, they would always be getting unpleasant
surprises afterwards. Besides, it would be so uncomfortable; it must
be pretty bad to live at close quarters with some one you were--who
you didn't know very well, with whom you minded about things."

She had touched on something that did matter now, that might matter
very much indeed; Rawson-Clew realised it, and realised with a start
of pain, that there might be a great gulf between him and the good
comrade after all. Her quick intuitions and perceptions had bridged it
over and led him to forget that he was a man of years and experience
while she was a girl, a young, shy, half-wild thing, veiled, and
fearing to draw the veil for his experienced eyes.

"Tell me," he said, facing her and looking very grave and old, "is
that how you feel about me?"

She fidgeted the tea-cloth with her foot, but being a Polkington, she
was able to answer something. "We belong to different lots of people,"
she said, examining the shape the thing had taken on the floor; "I
have got my life here, working in my garden and so on; and you have
got yours a long way off among greater things."

"You have not answered me," he said. "Tell me--am I the man you
described?"

He turned her so that she could look at him, the thing she